16th June - Sharing the diagnosis

Following all the checks and tests I drove home on my own feeling numb.  In the space of a few hours I’d gone from being informed that my condition was probably nothing to worry about to being told that in all likelihood I had cancer.  How is someone supposed to make sense of that?

Driving home I started to realise that I’d need to tell some people, particularly my family and work.  Obviously I was in no state to return to work that day.

By the time I got home I thought I’d accepted the news and was dealing with it.  How wrong I was.  I rang work to speak to my colleague to inform him I wouldn’t be returning.  Whilst trying to explain what had gone on in the morning I broke down into tears, I just couldn’t hold it together.

On top of this I knew I had to inform my parents which I was dreading.  Jacki rang them to make sure they'd be in before we drove around and sat them down.  Thankfully Jacki was very collected and explained the situation in the best way possible given the circumstances.  I was surprised how well they seemed to take the news.  They were obviously upset and worried, but I suspect my mum in particular only thought there was a ‘chance’ I may have cancer, whereas Jacki and I realised there was in fact a high-probability.

I spent the rest of Tuesday and the next two days trying to come to terms with what was going on and to prepare myself for the procedure.  Whilst in the grand scheme of things the procedure was only a relatively small operation, I still found it hard to come to terms with the fact that a small part of my body was going to be removed.  But by the same token I knew I had an 'enemy' in my body and I wanted that thing out as quickly as possible before it could do any further damage.